


Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)

by jmtorres



Category: Blackpool
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/pseuds/jmtorres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Track listing: Mack the Knife, Lemon Tree, Somebody to Love, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, I Will Survive, Rock 'n' Roll Lawyer, I Fought the Law (and the Law Won), Jailhouse Rock, You're My Best Friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jaela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaela/gifts).



> [Soundtrack on megaupload.](http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RWWHFRPD)
> 
> Thanks to my Britpickers, Tria and Tevildo. Any remaining Americanisms are ~~my fault~~ because Ripley Holden is strangely obsessed with America. Yes, totally.

I. _Oh the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear, and he shows them pearly white_

Ripley was clearly having a grand old time now that he counted himself as having won--he’d decided on a deeply inappropriate tune to sing at his daughter’s wedding after all, and was crooning about having gotten away with murder. It made Blythe sick.

“ _Now did you hear ‘bout Louie Miller?_ ” Ripley demanded, clutching the microphone. “ _He disappeared, babe, after drawing out all his hard-earned cash! And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor--could it be our boy’s done,_ ” he asked with a shark-white grin, “ _something rash?_ ”

The money had turned out to be a dead end--illegal as hell, all the scams Ripley and his accountant had pulled to keep the arcade afloat, but nothing to do with the murder, and it frustrated Blythe that Ripley was getting off for grassing his accountant up--officially, anyway; Blythe could see Carlisle and Natalie Holden inching up to each other and guess the rest of the deal.

“ _Sukey Tawdry,_ ” Ripley was drawling in old Ruth’s face, one of a string of women for Mack the Knife. She seemed tickled by the attention. How did the bastard fool so many people?

Because he didn’t. Wasn’t fooling, about not being the murderer, just about everything else. Blythe had been able to keep better track of that earlier--it was hard to keep track when witnesses kept lying, kept telling Carlisle what he wanted to hear because he’d not leave them alone else--but evidence didn’t lie, not like people did. What had this song said? _When the shark bites his teeth, scarlet billows start to spread, but fancy gloves wears old MacHeath, so there’s never, never a trace of red._

None of these bastards was that careful--Ripley hadn’t been wearing any fancy gloves. Nor had his son Danny, and Danny was the one with bruises on his knuckles. Who had sold drugs to the prostitute, to the victim? Danny. Who had confessed, damn it? Danny, Danny Holden.

The only reason they’d dismissed Danny’s story--aside from the fact that Carlisle was obsessed with nailing Ripley--was Ripley’s testimony that he’d tucked the boy into a cab at midnight and sent him home. A cab whose cabbie Blythe had never found, and he’d been looking. And one thing was for sure in this whole mess: Ripley Holden lied.

Blythe turned his back on Ripley doing a somewhat disturbing turn on the dance floor with his newlywed daughter and marched up to Jim Allbright.

“Sir,” Blythe said. “Ripley Holden didn’t commit murder, and the only reason he’s on the hook for it is my boss is after his wife. I’d like you to second my report to my superiors that Carlisle’s completely cocked this up and tried to get false testimony to support his cock-up--I know he pressured you to change your story to implicate Holden, sir, with that bribery nonsense--” Not nonsense, probably, but Blythe didn’t know anything about it so how was Blythe to say it wasn’t the same sort of threat Carlisle had tried on _him_? “And there were others. I want to get Carlisle removed from his position and clear Ripley Holden’s name by solving the case properly. Will you back me?”

Allbright stared at Blythe a moment, knocked back the rest of his drink, and said, “Yeah, I guess I will, at that. Carlisle’s really banging Natalie, then? I told Ripley he was being paranoid, about that.”

“Worse,” said Blythe. “We came here to arrest Holden. We’ve enough testimony against him, except some of it’s false. He got Carlisle to turn him loose by giving his permission for Carlisle to have at her.”

“Shit,” said Allbright. “PCA will have a field day, won’t they.”

“I can stitch up the murder case with one witness, though,” Blythe said. He had to get this next bit out diplomatically enough that Allbright wouldn’t pull out on him. “Danny Holden knows who did it, I think. Knows it weren’t his dad, at the very least.”

 

II. The Break-Up Medley

The police station was a madhouse. Blythe had hoped to get to Danny before his parents and Carlisle imploded, but Allbright wasn’t subtle enough pulling Danny off to the side and the whole thing blew up.

“You mean to tell me,” Natalie was yelling at Ripley, “that all that bullshit about my happiness was just that--bullshit? I’m nothing more to you than a bargaining chip?”

“I’m just playing the hand I was dealt, love!” Ripley shouted back, arms wide. “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade!”

“ _Lemon tree very pretty,_ ” Natalie trilled, “ _and the lemon flower is sweet--but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat._ ”

“ _One day she left without a word,_ ” Ripley answered, throwing his hands in the air. “ _She took away the sun. And in the dark she left behind, I knew,_ ” stabbing at his own chest with an angry finger, “ _what she had done: she’d left me for another man, a common tale but true. A sadder man but wiser now, I sing these words to you._ ”

Natalie and Carlisle both joined Ripley for another round of the chorus, altogether a passable match for Peter, Paul and Mary. Blythe rolled his eyes. “Danny, if you could come with me, please...”

But just as the music was fading away, Natalie burst out, “ _When the truth is found to be lies--and all the joy within you dies--_ ”

“ _Don’t you want somebody to love?_ ” Ripley sneered, gesturing at Carlisle. “ _Don’t you need somebody to love?_ ”

“ _Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?_ ” Natalie spat in return.

“ _You better find somebody to love,_ ” Carlisle said, shoving at Ripley.

Blythe would have just let them have a fistfight in the middle of the station and dragged Danny off to the side except that Danny apparently needed to sing too. “ _When you were young and on your own,_ ” he said, tugging on his father’s sleeve, “ _how did it feel to be alone?_ ”

Ripley seemed oddly moved by this query. “ _I was always thinking of games that I was playing,_ ” he admitted. “ _Trying to make the best of my time._ ”

“ _But only love can break your heart,_ ” Natalie said reproachfully.

“ _Try to be sure right from the start,_ ” Ripley advised Danny.

“ _Yes, only love can break your heart,_ ” Carlisle concurred.

Danny looked amongst the irresponsible adults worriedly. “ _What if your world should fall apart?_ ”

With a deep sigh, Blythe decided that the old adage, _If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,_ applied here. Music swelled up behind him, and Blythe belted out at the lot of them, “ _Go on now, go! Walk out the door! Turn around now, ‘cause you’re not welcome anymore!_ ” Ripley, Natalie and Carlisle all backed away uneasily. Blythe shoved Danny behind him into an interrogation room. Carlisle started to follow, so Blythe continued, “ _Weren’t you the one that tried to hurt me with goodbye? Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?_ ” He shut the door in Carlisle’s face and thankfully the music ended dramatically on the slam, instead of continuing through the chorus.

When Blythe turned around, Danny was staring at him. “Are you and Detective Carlisle... er?”

“No,” Blythe said forcefully. Then, a little more gently, because the investigation had suggested a thing like that might not be an idle question to Danny: “Definitely not after that nonsense with your mother.”

“Oh,” said Danny, looking down at his hands. “Do you think he really loves her?”

“I don’t know,” Blythe said. “He threw away his career to be with her, so maybe. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about, is it?”

“I guess not,” Danny said. His shoulders hunched, making him look even shorter.

“Have a seat,” said Blythe. “It’ll be all right, you know. All you have to do is tell the truth.”

“The truth shall set me free?” Danny laughed derisively.

“Free of guilt, free of secrets, yeah,” Blythe said. “Look, Danny, I don’t think your dad killed Mike Hooley, but he made a deal with Carlisle so he wouldn’t get arrested, and that makes him _look_ damn guilty.” Danny was hooked, Blythe could tell. That was why he’d confessed the first time, wasn’t it, because he’d known Carlisle had it in for his dad. “I know you used to hang around those flats, dealing, and I think you were there that night, and that you saw what happened. And I want you to tell me.”

Danny nodded slowly. “It was me. Like I said before.”

Oh, the kid really did want to let it all out. “Tell me about it,” Blythe offered.

“You don’t believe me either,” Danny said sullenly, staring down.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Danny,” Blythe said gently. “It’s just that this is serious, and I want to really be sure that you’re not taking responsibility for something someone else did. I need you to tell me what happened, how it happened, why it happened. Can you do that, Danny?”

“Yeah,” Danny said, barely aloud. And he did. How he hung around the prostitutes, how the punters were always interested in a little mood enhancement, how the girls had minded him hanging around less when they found out he was gay, and here he looked sideways at Blythe and Blythe just nodded, neutrally, so Danny told him how they’d come to trust him, rely on him, how coming out to Hailey was the best thing Danny had ever done.

So she’d been relying on him, the night Mike Hooley came by, and she’d called for him, and he’d run in, and Hooley had been trying to kill her--Danny looked desperately at Blythe, and Blythe said, “Yeah, his fiancée said he hit her. He wasn’t good to women.” So encouraged, Danny went on to say that yeah, he’d tried to pull Hooley off her, but he couldn’t, the man wouldn’t let go of her throat, drugs, yeah, they make you berserker sometimes, so he’d hit Hooley, and Hooley had dropped like a stone.

“How did the body end up in the arcade?” Blythe asked, though he mostly knew, and Danny walked him through that part too, and seemed a little calmer for it, if miserable. “I believe you,” Blythe told him.

“You do?” Danny said.

“Yeah,” said Blythe. “That means I have to arrest you, now, you understand?”

“Yeah,” Danny said quietly.

“You should get a good solicitor,” Blythe said. “You were protecting your friend, you could get off for that.”

“I guess,” Danny said in a way that made Blythe wonder if he’d lost him again, if he was listening at all. But there was nothing left for it but to read him his rights.

 

III. _It ain’t no crime, ‘cause I’m--a rock’n’roll lawyer_

In the end, Danny didn’t get a good solicitor: he got his dad, and a circus of a trial. He was sentenced to five years for manslaughter, with a potential reduction to two years because he was a minor, and he did a duet of _I Fought The Law (And The Law Won)_ with his father as they led him away.

 

IV. _Warden threw a party in the county jail_

Prisoners danced in their cells, holding onto the bars and gyrating their hips. It all seemed very choreographed given most of them couldn’t see one another. _Let’s rock, everybody, let’s rock, everybody in the whole cell-block was dancin’ to the jailhouse rock._

Blythe sat down opposite Danny and said, “This place is really weird, you know that?”

Danny shrugged; he seemed embarrassed when he said, “They just know I’m glad you’re visiting.”

Blythe wasn’t able to come up and visit often, but he’d been corresponding with Danny--he’d always felt responsible for the way the case had fallen out. If the trial hadn’t been such a joke maybe it would have bothered him less. Danny didn’t blame him, though, had written him back eagerly every time. Blythe rather suspected he was nursing a crush.

“No, seriously,” Blythe insisted. “Nowhere else do the coppers mean it literally when they say, ‘I barely had to squeeze before he sang like a canary.’”

That got a little smile from Danny. Until a guard walked behind Danny singing, “ _Number 47 said to number 3, ‘You’re the cutest little jailbird I ever did see,’_ ” and Danny’s shoulders hunched in again.

“So how are you doing?” Blythe asked.

“All right,” said Danny. “Shyanne comes ‘round often as she can, and sometimes Mum too. Not Dad, anymore, I told them not to tell him when the parole hearing is--I’d like, you know--”

“To have a snowball’s chance in hell?” Blythe asked, smiling wryly.

Danny nodded. “You’re coming, though?”

“Yes,” Blythe said. Having the arresting officer testify on his behalf should help Danny, and it really was promising that he’d gotten out from under his father’s thumb. It said nasty things about Ripley Holden that prison was a less damaging environment than his household, but Danny really had grown up and calmed down since he’d escaped his father’s influence.

“Afterwards--when I’m out--if I get out--” Danny said haltingly.

“You’ll get out,” Blythe said encouragingly.

Danny nodded once and looked away quickly. He seemed to be psyching himself up for something. The music shifted in the background, but Blythe foolishly didn’t process it as relevant until the guard from earlier put his hands on the back of Danny’s chair and caroled, “ _Ooooh, you make me live._ ”

“ _Whatever this world can give to me,_ ” Danny sang shyly, barely meeting Blythe’s gaze, “ _it’s you, you’re all I see._ ”

“ _Ooh, you make me live, now, honey._ ” Half the inmates were harmonizing with the guard, who thankfully had danced away from Danny. “ _Ooh, you make me live!”_

Blythe was torn between rolling his eyes at the absurdity and paying Danny the attention he was due for such a revelation, even if he’d had to fall back on song to say it.

“ _You're the first one, when things turn out bad,_ ” Danny said, heartfelt and inarticulate in that way of awkward declarations. “ _You're my sunshine and I want you to know that my feelings are true, I really love--_ ” Danny faltered, “ _the things, I really love the things that you do. You're my best friend._ ”

“ _Ooh, you make me live!_ ” the back-up singer-prisoners enthused.

Blythe gave up and sang back in agreement, “ _You’re my best friend._ ” The ridiculousness was worth it for how Danny’s face lit up at the confirmation.

If he was going to be more than Danny’s best friend, Blythe thought, well, that could wait until Danny was out. The occasional song to express one’s inner feelings was one thing, but the chorusing dancers were a little much.


End file.
